The reason why sports are segregated by gender is because men can’t stand to lose to women.

Think about this. Why are even non-contact sports segregated? Tennis? Why?!

Even chess is segregated by gender. Chess!

The only way that trans people make sense is if gender and sex are two separate things.

How is it that I, a straight man, am attracted to trans women if they’re actually men? Does that mean that I’m bisexual? No, because I’m not attracted to cis men. (Or trans men, for that matter.) Think about the pretzel logic you have to get into if you have a worldview like JK Rowling. “Bisexual for femininity” isn’t a thing. Straight men are attracted to women. Cis women, trans women. Women. Period.

Now, I know that it’s about more than attraction, but this is what got me to start thinking about this. Another was this thought experiment somebody gave me: “If your dick got chopped off, would you instantly turn into a woman?” No, of course not.

At this point a gender essentialist would probably start talking about chromosomes. Chromosomes determine what your gender is! Nobody uses this as a definition for gender in any practical way, though. When you’re looking at somebody from across the room, you don’t know what their chromosomes are. How many of your friends do you have chromosomal data on? How about the people you’ve dated? Are they going to use chromosomes to determine which bathroom you can use? Or which team you can play on? This is incoherent. It’s like basing gender upon whether you have an even or odd number of atoms in your body.

I had one person tell me that a trans woman would be unsuitable for marriage because she couldn’t give birth. I’m not interested in having children, but setting that aside…would they say the same thing about a cis woman who’s infertile? Every single one of these arguments is incoherent.

The one criticism that I felt had some truth to it is that it looks like it was designed by a 14-year-old boy. I think it appeals to my inner 14-year-old who wants neon icons and DRAGONS. But if Dr460nized is too garish for you and you want something more sophisticated, now there’s Mokka.

Why wouldn’t I want to reboot?

I use Garuda, and it hasn’t borked for me in years. I update it about once a week.

Sharing is ethically good. There needs to be more sharing in the world.

Calling it “piracy” is corporate framing. Piracy is theft: you’re stealing from somebody else’s boat. That isn’t what’s happening here. This is filesharing.

I’m just glad my religion doesn’t tell me what I can download.

I don’t. I’m still an agnostic. I just don’t tell people that if I think they won’t understand and it isn’t worth the time explaining it to them.

The CRA doesn’t use the word “and”. It’s “or”.

manifesting, promoting, sustaining, or increasing belief

Meaning it’s optional. Also, “promoting” is quite vague. TST doesn’t qualify in any case, though, because what are they “manifesting, promoting, sustaining, or increasing belief” of?

a religion’s three key attributes, which are: faith in a higher unseen power such as a God, Supreme Being, or Entity; worship or reverence; and a particular and comprehensive system of doctrines and observances

So yeah. Non-theistic Satanism doesn’t apply. We have reverence, we have doctrines and observances…we do not have a Supreme anything.

TST primarily operates in the USA, so the IRS code is much more relevant. Let’s see which part of this applies:

advancement of religion

That’s it? “Advancement” is even more vague than “promoting”! I can do a lot of things that “advance” my religion without trying to recruit people. Adding more programs to my congregation, for example. Hey, now we have a book club! Satanism has been advanced.

In fact, I think that most Satanists would say that trying to recruit wouldn’t be advancement at all…it would be a big step backwards.

How are those not embracing the material world? The 5th tenet makes it explicitly materialist.

The leaders aren’t sitting around meditating. They’re in court, doing material things.

Yeah, you can give up on superstition without giving up on religion.

Agnosticism is just saying “I don’t know”. If you know that gods don’t exist, I’d like to hear about how you got this knowledge.

Agnostics are just people who are willing to admit when they don’t know something. It’s a quality that a lot of people seem to lack.

Secular humanism isn’t a religion. “Secular” means “non-religious”.

The Church of Satan are atheists. They might worship the self, but they don’t think the self is a god. I don’t have the patience if you want to split hairs in that, but it isn’t a kind of theism as it’s commonly understood. It’s like saying that vegetarians eat meat because the edible part of a nut is called “meat”.

I’ve never heard of TST proselytizing. When and where have you seen this?

Also, proselytism is part of the definition of a church in most countries, that is why, for instance, the Church of Satan is not legally a church in the US, because they do not proselytize.

Please post evidence for this.

The US government is pretty hands-off when it comes to deciding what is and isn’t a religion. It’s that whole First Amendment thing.

As much as they are a religion legally, they are atheists and their symbols are not religious, just fancy branding.

They are religious, because Satanism is a religion. I am a member of TST and a religious Satanist. This is covered in the FAQ on TST’s website.

TST is an atheistic religion. That is not a contradiction because you don’t need to believe in gods to have a religion (see also Buddhism).

I’ve encountered several TST members who also practice Buddhism. It seems to be the religion that overlaps the most. It seems odd to me, because I thought Buddhism rejected the material world while TST embraces it, but I’m probably missing something.

The issue I had with calling myself “agnostic” is that most Christians think of it as “undecided” (which it isn’t), so they’ll try to convert you. If you tell them you’re an atheist, they’re more likely to leave you alone (in my experience).